The Home for Wayward Clocks (42 page)

Which might not even work. Maybe she wasn’t saving his life at all. Marcus closed his eyes for a second and remembered that moment when the clock took over, when he felt something open in his body, a dam holding in all the evil, the bad luck, the ill health, death lurking somewhere within his own skin, and it all washed away. The magic connection was there, he just knew it.

So it was okay to sleep. The clock would watch over him. She almost seemed to nod and Marcus wanted so much to believe.

But in his mind, a doubt still squirmed. It poked Marcus in the neck and in the back of the eyelids and although he wanted to lie down and sleep the morning away, he decided he needed reassurance.

Getting up, Marcus dragged through the house, checking the candles. A few burned out overnight, especially the ones in the bedroom where he always had a window cracked. He relit them, then made a pit stop in the bathroom, saying good morning to the virgin as he stood next to the toilet. He pretended that he felt her nubile admiration and he gave his penis an extra healthy stroke and tap, just for her. When he got to the kitchen, the bread was moldy, so he made a breakfast of last week’s day-old bakery and coffee made from yesterday’s grounds. They would be replaced with fresh ones tomorrow.

As he waited for the coffee to brew, Marcus stood in the archway and watched the clock. He tried to think of a way to test her effectiveness. He scanned the kitchen, as if the dirty dishes or empty cabinets or the dozen lit candles would give him an answer. And in a sense, they did. When his eyes landed on yesterday’s butter knife, a flame reflected off the blade and he felt a new level of magic shimmer into his skin.

And he realized a butter knife just wouldn’t do it.

Collecting two stiff muffins, a cup of coffee and a clean steak knife, Marcus returned to the clock. He ate his breakfast with her, savoring every bite, because having a new life taught him to appreciate all things. The muffins were sweeter, the coffee more fragrant and even the knife shone prettily in the candlelight. The handle was a solid black, the blade a toothy silver. It smiled at Marcus and he smiled back. The clock ticked confidently, pushing Marcus’ heart forward into each new second.

So Marcus finished his breakfast and then picked up the knife. He felt afraid for a moment, but just for a moment, and out loud, he apologized to the clock for doubting her. Then he stared at her, stared straight past the pendulum into her innermost workings, into her soul and his own, and he concentrated. He watched everything move forward in that clock, keeping perfect time, keeping him on his steady life path. And Marcus held the knife to one wrist.

He felt it as he sliced, but he kept his eyes on the clock and sure enough, the pain went quickly away. Marcus sawed back and forth until he hit something solid. That was deep enough, and then he switched hands. It was hard to hold the knife, his hand was slick and loose, but he didn’t look down and he started sawing again. Until that bone was reached.

And there was still no pain. Marcus lifted his arms high above his head, thrusting both fists in a victory celebration, and the blood flew into his eyes. He saw then the mess he’d made and for a second, his heart skipped and shuddered. He quickly focused again on the clock, but while he tried to concentrate, his eyes blurred.

His blood was flowing smoothly again, and there was nothing left to dam it.

Marcus cursed.

As he slid to the floor, Marcus made sure to knock over the clock so that she fell with him, landing next to his head with a solid thunk and with a few candles too. There were sparks and through them, Marcus saw the clock’s workings slow and stop.

Like the movie. At least there was some magic in that.

A
nd so as you grow older, you settle into your solitary life. You find solace in your clocks and in your home and even in the distanced comfort that the little town you live in provides. There are people who smile at you, shake your hand, and claim to make your acquaintance. And though you know the truth, you still gather whatever warmth you can while keeping your life carefully to yourself.

It’s the nights that are so cold. Even as the clocks gather around you, fill the emptiness with chatter and song, there is only your own skin to keep you company.

Inside you, the rage slithers down the river of the parallel veins. And you wonder sometimes if it’s thick, thick like cholesterol, gumming up your blood. Gumming up your life. But as long as that river is alive, as long as your mother flows within you, you have to be on guard.

Late at night, when you sit in your living room, watch the fire, and listen to the clocks, you fold your hands in your lap and you hold very, very still. You can feel the thrum of that hidden river, follow its pulse from your mind to your chest to your fists and feet. Your mind thinks unthinkable thoughts sometimes. Like the time it burst and your thoughts roared with the profound pleasure of watching someone else’s face bloom red and blue and purple. Your chest sears with the strength and desire to harm and it sends the anger to your extremities, turning them into weapons. And sometimes, in the darkest of nights, you have your dream of sending someone else to the root cellar. Sending a child who looks amazingly like you, but isn’t you, and you burn with the wonderful ache of power. But when you wake, you are soaked through with shame.

You know how it feels, to be locked away like that. How can you possibly want to do it to someone else? Even in your deepest most hidden place? You wonder if burn victims wish for blisters on their wives, if cancer patients dream of tumors sprouting on their sons’ brains.

Imagine.

You are so ashamed.

You consider sometimes as you sit by the fire, your hands folded in your lap, who you would have been if only your own blood flowed through you. If your mother wasn’t there at all. You imagine what it would have been like to be in a different family. Would you have learned to play? To sing at the sky and swing through leaf-laden branches, watching the sun fall in dapples over your favorite pair of jeans? The jeans a different mother shook her head over, but still washed and left on the foot of your bed so you could find them in the morning on days when the outdoors called and you could run and hide as a game and only as a game. Would you have dated a few girls in high school, kissed in movie theaters and in dark parked cars and sometimes, even behind the closed door of a special girl’s bedroom while her parents were away? Would you have gone to college and learned everything you ever wanted to know, everything you ever questioned and wondered about?

And married. Married a special girl, maybe the same special girl from high school, and you would have had children. A boy, a girl, maybe more. And the only door you would have closed would have been those to their bedrooms, at night, softly, after kissing them with lips so light, they never stirred beneath their blankets. You wouldn’t even own a root cellar.

Imagine.

Instead, you live alone in a house full of clocks. Clocks which you love and which love you. You do what you love, search for clocks, save clocks, present them to the public and protect them from the same. Yet every night, as you sit surrounded by those you love, you ache with a loneliness that you can’t imagine anyone else feeling. Not as they live their lives of laughter at dinner, kisses at bedtime, and spooned bodies before falling asleep.

James knew that ache, as he knew so many different kinds of pain so very well. Too well. Sometimes, he wondered if there was any other way to be, but in pain. He sat at night and listened to his clocks and to the flow of his hidden and secret anger and he tried to imagine what his life could have been. Who he could have been.

Imagine.

Oh, imagine.

T
he next afternoon, Cooley helped wind the clocks. James’ fingers were completely healed now and he could do it himself, but she just kept hanging at his elbow. So James told her to make use of herself and get to work.

“You know,” he said as he watched her wind a mantel clock, “I can really do this myself now. You don’t need to come over anymore.”

She shrugged and kept winding.

“Why aren’t you hanging out with your gang?” For a moment, James saw Cooley again, sauntering down the street, surrounded by those black-clad kids. He remembered their sneers and their loud voices, Cooley’s among them. The voice she had, the snarl in it, her words bitten and sharp. When she looked at James now, he could still see that Cooley, but there was a difference too. There was something going on with her eyes, with the way she held her mouth. He wondered if her voice had changed, he wondered if it was softer.

But there was a part of James that didn’t want to know. It would be so much easier to keep Cooley where she belonged, with the gang of kids he hated, than to learn how to like somebody, how to behave when he liked somebody. With Ione, with Gene, even with Molly and Neal and Doc, James could fake it, he could reflect off of what they did to him. But Cooley was different. She was still new, still fresh-faced under the too-dark make-up she wore, and anything James did could hurt her and the hurt would show in her eyes. And anything she did could hurt James too. It would be better if she stayed where she belonged, and James as well.

She shrugged again, then crossed the room to get the notebook. James busied himself winding. “I’m mostly here,” she wrote. “They think I’ve gone weird or something.”

“Well, there’s not all that much for you to do here,” James said. “I don’t really need an employee, unless I’m away for the weekend or something.”

She just turned back to the clocks.

He watched her, watched her young arms turning the keys, pulling on chains, saw her bend easily to get the clocks on the lower tables and shelves. She smiled as she worked and he saw her lips move. She was talking to the clocks. James wished he could hear what she said.

And he realized that he didn’t want her to go. It had been a while since he didn’t want someone to leave and he didn’t know quite what to do. So James walked quickly out of the room.

Ione was in the kitchen, cleaning up the lunch dishes. He didn’t need her to do that anymore either, but Ione seemed to have taken up permanent residence. Her form at the kitchen sink was a familiar sight now. It was like she belonged, her body pushing a worn curve in the edge of the countertop as she leaned over the sink. If James walked by outside and saw her face in the window, he wouldn’t be startled. Wouldn’t be startled to see another face in the house where he’d lived alone for so long.

Ione placed a cup of coffee in front of James and when he picked it up, his hands shook. Coffee slopped over the edge of the cup onto the table. In a flash, Ione wiped it up. Then she placed her hand on his shoulder and looked at him, her eyebrows raised. James knew exactly what she was asking. Are you okay? Are you okay, James?

He asked himself the same question. Then he took a sip of coffee and closed his eyes. It took a moment, but he nodded. He wasn’t sure which motion his head would take, a nod or a shake, until he started, but then his chin dipped forward. James felt Ione leave and when he opened his eyes, she was back at the sink. He knew she was humming, her hips swayed with her own song, and he wondered what it sounded like. He wondered if Ione could sing.

Cooley walked in and sat down. She had the notebook clutched in both hands. James could see big handwriting on it again and her mouth was drawn tight and her knuckles were white. She said something to Ione who came and looked over her shoulder at the notebook. She said something too and Cooley nodded, her eyes closing. She slid the notebook over to James.

In big black letters, diagonally across the page, Cooley shouted, “DON’T U WANT ME HERE ANYMORE?” James was about to hand the notebook back when he noticed smaller letters at the bottom of the page, on the last line and crammed into the right hand corner. She said, “plz don’t send me away.”

James’ hands shook again and he set the notebook down quickly. Please don’t send me away. Please don’t send me there. How many times did he think those words, say them, as his mother pointed to the root cellar? Too many times, because they stopped being words after a while. They became a feeling, a cramp in his lungs, a cramp that got worse after he got into his cage and raised his nose to the dirt ceiling and howled.

He looked at Cooley. She faced James, but her eyes were still closed. He wondered if she wanted to howl. He wondered what root cellar he’d be sending her to if he told her to leave. There was so much he wanted to say, but so little he could actually muster. “Yes,” James said softly. “Yes, I still want you here. I can always use the help.”

Cooley’s eyes flew open and for a moment, James saw a joy that soared right through his body. Part of him wanted to jump up and grab her then, dance her around the kitchen. And another part wanted to run away as fast as he could. This girl needed to be wanted, needed to be welcome and necessary, and James just didn’t know where to start. If he could wind her and set her time and stick her in a corner, he could do it and do it well. But looking at her, James knew there was going to be more to it than that.

Ione patted Cooley’s shoulder and said something and Cooley looked up and laughed. Bits of her laughter broke through James’ ears, a staccato sound, high-pitched and sharp. He closed the notebook so he could shut the need away for a while. “We should get some work done on your clock,” he said and headed for the basement. On the way down, James felt Cooley’s weight reverberating behind him. She was like his shadow. At the workbench, she sat on the stool next to him, the notebook resting in her lap. She chewed on a pencil as she watched James work and listened to every explanation as he cleaned the parts and settled them into place.

James stopped about an hour and a half later, when all that was left was to wind the clock, attach the pendulum, get it going. Setting the clock upright, he turned to look at Cooley. Her eyes were focused on the painting on the front of the clock and she was smiling, a soft smile that made her seem like a child again, a six-year old sitting expectant in front of a storybook. James looked at the painting too and admired the soft greens and yellows of the willow tree, the pale blue of the lake. Cooley touched his elbow and then pointed at the little cottage tucked in the back of the painting, almost hidden by the trees. She wrote in the notebook, “I want 2 live there.” She hesitated a moment, then added, “Just me. And some clocks. It would B perfect.”